November 28. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
155 
j on a bull calf, which used to share my meals whenever 1 
could slip out unobserved ; but he turned ungrateful at 
last. One hot day, in July, as I was driving a herd of 
cattle down a brae, a red cow was bit by “ the fly,” and 
ran for it, arching her tail, and kicking her clumsy heels 
in the air; this is an infectious game; another and 
another started off, till all were in the mood ; last of all, 
my sleek Arab “threw out” with such a glee, that I 
could hold on no longer; but I could not make out the 
exact distance be threw me, as I was badly stunned. 
He never, afterwards, objected to my mounting him; 
but he soon got tired, and knew how to dispose of me. 
About this time I began to learn history; and the first 
things which I can recollect were the exploits of the 
42nd Highlanders, at the battle of Talavera, and General 
Wellesley, the great Duke; who, if I am not out in 
my books, occupied such advantage in position, as 
Menscbikoff did at the Alma; but with a far different 
result; for we drove them down the hill again and again 
with such effect, that they did not try it on again for 
months to come; and so on down to Waterloo. The accounts 
of cavalry charges, however, were the only piarts of the war 
which I could never get out of my little head; my young 
blood was up to “ fever heat;” 1 had my “allies” too, 
and we all made up our minds to have horses, and be 
soyers. There was no want of cavalry, when the colts 
were sent up “ to grass ; ” but that stupid bull cowed me 
much, and the idea of being upset by a fiery colt, in the 
face of all my own officers, perplexed me sadly. It was 
three or four years before J could handle my horse so as 
to lead a cavalry charge. Meantime, a pensioner was a 
god-send to our house; they all liked “ a drop,” and to 
tell of the war, and before I could stick to the ribs 
of a colt, I learned all the duties of a commander; and 
having been at school, every winter, for a long while, 
the post was always assigned to me by common consent. 
The perfection of a cavalry charge, in those days, was, 
when the enemy was on the opposite side of a river, 
then you draw up a-breast, twenty yards on this side the 
river, opposite a bank where the water is deep enough 
to swim in; now draw swords, dash on to the bank, 
plunge into the river, keep your horse’s head well up in 
hand, square your elbows to keep down the kilt, and no 
matter how deep the passage, you are out on the other 
side, safe as ducks; now give him your heels, the shower 
from his dripping sides will confound the enemy, whose 
flauk is now turned, and those that are not cut down 
. are easily driven, back foremost, into the river; no 
enemy can swim, and the day is yours ; but do not go 
home till your clothes are dry, do not let your sisters 
, see these charges, and you may save your couutry for 
| years, nobody knowing how. All our aunts, and most 
1 of our grandmothers, were the only relatives who could 
appreciate the necessity for highland troopers, and the 
dash and daring of the self-elected officers. 
My mother died before my ardour for the military 
service attracted attention, aud my father did not 
marry a second time; he was forty years a widower, 
and he might be said to live, only to carry out her last 
! wishes. She was a pious, good woman, full of charity 
and good works, and before I was born she resolved, 
that it her second child was a boy, be should be 
brought up and educated for the church. For this end 
she, herself, began to lay the foundation as soon as I 
could lisp, and on to my seventh year, when she died. 
My father was now doubly anxious that my educa¬ 
tion should continue on the same foundation; and the 
person whom he engaged to manage the household 
affairs was selected for her qualifications in that respect. 
She soon obtained a strong influence over me and the 
rest of the children—there were five of us—through 
her kindness; she was much opposed to my favourite 
study, and my strong desire to be a cavalry officer some 
day; and it was some years before my father knew of it. 
Meantime, my grandmother filled my head with the 
genealogy of the Beatons. The Jewish custom of count¬ 
ing only the first born son, in chronological order, was 
closely followed in the highlands from the days of Ossian 
and St. Patrick, or during more than fourteen hundred 
years; this found me the twenty-third “ first-born” of a 
race which sprang from a defeated brother, but whether 
a first or a second brother was not quite certain. By 
the last defeat ray ancestor lost the Isle of Sky. The 
two brothers had agreed to row in open boats from the 
mainland, with each a certain number of followers, and 
the first who should reach the island was to bo the 
owner. My line failed, and lost the prize; but worse even 
than that, the fact is held out to all the world to this 
very day, in the arms of Lord MacDonald, the lineal 
descendant of the other brother, “ Per Mare per Terra,” 
which, when rightly understood, means “ I have done 
them at last, by sea and by land.” The disgrace on out¬ 
side was complete ; we returned in the boat, the Gaelic 
for which is bhate or bliatean; turn it into the vulgar 
tongue, aud it makes Beaton. Your humble servant is 
the last, and likely enough to be the last, of that long 
run of boatmen; but another turn of the die, and he 
would have been a lord, per mare per terra. 
Now, when a little fellow’s grandmother fills his 
stomach with curds and cream, his head with such 
stories as the above, and allows him his choice of a 
dozen young horses, in troublesome, or warlike times, 
bow could he help going mad to be a soldier? From 
1812 to 1817, I studied as hard as ever I could for the 
two professions,—the Kirk and the Camp. The fall of 
Napoleon in 1815, and the hard harvest in 1810, to say 
nothing of the losses during the hard winter of 1814, 
caused a panic among cattle-dealers, and more than one- 
half of them were bankrupts. My hopes of prosocuting 
my studies were now wholly blighted, and I left school, 
and went tutor into the family of Mr. Strachen, Lord 
Lovat's manager, at Beaufort Castle, where I taught two 
boys and two girls for more than two years. Hero I got 
the first hold of the English language, no Gaelic was 
spoken in the house ; I was treated more like a son than 
a teacher. Thomas, the oldest son, was now fit to go to 
the Inverness Academy, preparatory for college, and Mr. 
Strachen proposed that I should go with him, both to 
look after Tom, and prepare myself to compete for a 
bursary in King’s College, Aberdeen. Inverness Academy 
